Today is the 80th birthday of the Italian ballerina, Carla Fracci. She was born in Milan on 20 August 1936. To celebrate we asked fellow ballerinas, as well as actresses and designers she has worked with, for messages and best wishes on a very special day. with thanks to Merrill Ashley – Aurora Benelli – Rebecca Bianchi […]
Petra Conti
More dancers decide to leave Italy… most never come back
Italy’s Got Talent. Lots of it. Sometimes that talent finds it difficult to emerge – it’s not always what you know but who you know – and sometimes there’s not enough room for everyone to show what they can do, but talent there is. Italy bursts at the seams with paintings and monuments – a reminder […]
Glamorous casting at La Scala as Natalia Osipova steps in at last minute
After the success La Scala’s ballet company during their dates in Tokyo – 10,000 people saw the 5 performances of Romeo and Juliet – they now return to Milan with four performances of Swan Lake from 14 to 18 October. This is a continuation of the performances in July, dedicated to Rudolf Nureyev in the […]
Ballet globalisation continues as La Scala dancers abandon ship
The boat may not be sinking, but this season finds four members of the ballet company at Milan’s La Scala moving elsewhere, and two, following in the footsteps of Kobborg and Cojocaru, made it a last minute announcement. Soloist Francesca Podini has left for Jean-Christophe Maillot’s company in Monte Carlo. She is a dancer with a unique […]
The music of Italy’s n°1 rocker returns to La Scala
Vasco Rossi is one of the most famous Italian rockers. The singer-songwriter has hit sixty, but continues to sell out stadiums. His most famous song, Vita spericolata (Daredevil Life) sums up his own approach to life, and in true rock style he’s regularly finished up in clinics to detox. A strange choice for ballet music? Well, of […]
Ivan Vasiliev’s injury gives unknown Claudio Coviello a chance to shine
While it wasn’t exactly a case of ‘A Star is Born’, 21-year-old Claudio Coviello was certainly given a golden opportunity when Ivan Vasiliev couldn’t go on at La Scala last night. Coviello had learnt the role of Quasimodo in Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris for just a single matinée performance. The evening spots were taken […]
Ivan Vasiliev is forced to cancel début at the last minute
Ivan Vasiliev, who has been suffering from back pains for a few days, was forced to bow out of his début at Teatro alla Scala in Milan at the last minute. He was already in make-up for his role as the Hunchback in Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris, when half-an-hour before curtain up he realised […]
La Scala dancers Petra Conti and Eris Nezha, a couple on and off-stage, are promoted to first dancers on the Bolshoi stage
Last night, after the final performance of the George Balanchine’s ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Teatro alla Scala company at the newly restored Bolshoi Theatre, two of the company’s youngest dancers were promoted to primi ballerini (first dancers). La Scala ballet’s director Makhar Vaziev (ex-director of the Mariinsky) has been grooming the pair for a while, their first […]
Being groomed for stardom: Italian ballerina Petra Conti
23 year-old Petra Conti is a dancer at La Scala in Milan, who is being slowly brought before the public by director (ex-director of the Mariinsky) Makhar Vaziev. He first saw her when she spent a year in St Petersburg at the Mariinsky to polish her technique. After the 2008-2009 season with the Bavarian State […]
